At the end of a long day of school drops offs, pick ups, housework, volunteering, soccer and tennis, I love entering my kitchen for a bit of stress relief.  My reprieve is cooking.  Making a delicious, healthy meal is just as fun as eating it.  Granted, I’ve been doing it a long time and have my flow going.  But, even when I had no clue what braise really meant, I still found the kitchen to be therapeutic.

Kitchen gadgets make cooking even more fun.  I recently acquired a new one.  It was love at first sight.  I first spotted this darling on another food blog.  I admired the curves and lines, and kept going back to fawn over the green beauty again and again.  I told my husband, “If you ever need a gift idea for me, this is it!”.  I showed him where to buy it on Amazon.  Then I waited.  He didn’t take the hint.  The green beauty didn’t arrive on my doorstep.  Then, something better happened.  Amazon local deals had my beautiful green goddess on sale for half price, for one day!  That was it.  Within 5 minutes, it was bought and a few days later I had her in my hands.  I bet you want to know what it is by now.  What I have been gushing over.  You will probably think I am strange for obsessing over this tool, but here it is…

If you are looking for the proper wording for this bad boy, it is a vegetable processing device.   In simpler terms, it makes veggies into noodles.  I have chopped vegetables trying to get them to resemble noodles, only getting an o.k. result.  The results you receive with this bad boy are perfect.  There are two blades, one for angel hair type noodles, and one for wider noodles.  In this recipe I used the angel hair blade, but it really doesn’t matter.  I piled my plate as high as I wanted, because everything in this recipe is good for you.  So go ahead and stuff yourself silly with this dish.

Oh and by the way, the price is even lower than what I bought it for on Amazon now.  For $6, this  —–> beauty can be yours!  (click on pic for a direct link).

Now for the recipe:

1 lb boneless chicken thighs, visible fat trimmed, cut into 1 inch strips

1 Portobello mushroom cap, cut into 1 inch strips

1/4 sliced brown onion

6 asparagus spears, snap woody bottom off and cut into 4 pieces

1/2 cup bruschetta (click for recipe)

2 zucchini, cut into pasta like noodles (you can use a knife, it just won’t be uniform)

salt, pepper & garlic powder for seasoning

olive oil

Pre-heat broiler.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil.  Sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder and put on cookie sheet.  Broil for 7 minutes.

While chicken is broiling, sprinkle mushrooms, asparagus, and onions with salt and pepper and saute in 1 tsp, of olive oil over high heat for 5 minutes.  Remove to a bowl and set aside.

Put another 1 tsp. of oilve oil in saute pan and saute zucchini for 3/4 minutes, moving constantly.  Add in bruschetta, saute for another 2 minutes.  To serve divide the zucchini noodles, veggies, and chicken into to bowls.  Serve hot